Above: Don Wright and wife Carolyn host the AAEC Convention in Miami in 1969.
The news recently broke that Don Wright, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, has died at age 90. He drew some 11,000 cartoons during a 45-year career, and while Wright only ever worked for two Florida papers, The Miami News and The Palm Beach Post, his work was seen around the world. In its obituary, The Post said that Wright’s “searing, meticulously crafted illustrations made him one of the most renowned political cartoonists of his era.”
His passing was even mentioned this week in the New York Times, which, before they turned on editorial cartoonists, once syndicated Wright’s work nationwide. The NYT noted the respect and influence cartoonists once held: “The morning after winning his first Pulitzer, in 1966, Mr. Wright received a telegram from George C. Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama [and frequent Wright target]. ‘Sometimes even the meanest cartoonists are unaccountably decorated for their work,’ it said. ‘If the shoe fits, wear it.’ Mr. Wright kept the telegram framed in his home.”
Don Wright began drawing local cartoons for the Miami News after leaving the Army in the late ’50s, and had ambitions. DD Degg at The Daily Cartooonist wrote, “Wright’s goal was to replace the cartoons The News was using with his own. Quite an objective since the regular cartoonist seen there was The Washington Post’s Herblock and on Herblock’s off days they ran with The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Bill Mauldin.” [Ed note: You can really see the influence of both Herblock and Mauldin in Don’s early work.]
His former paper stated, “Mr. Wright’s political views were unabashedly liberal. But his interests and subjects often outpaced the liberal consensus of his time. He was an early critic of the Catholic Church’s cover-up of sexual predators among its clergy, recalled Eddie Sears, The Post’s editor from 1985 to 2005. ” The NYT added, “As a Florida cartoonist, Mr. Wright was attuned to many issues there, including conservation.”
Cartoonist Rick McKee, in a comment posted to The Daily Cartoonist, said “for an aspiring cartoonist growing up in Florida in the mid-80s, Don Wright was a mythical figure. His concepts and humor were sublime and his draftsmanship was simply perfection. Not a line was extraneous or wasted.”
Wright would eventually go on to win the Pulitzer twice, and be nominated for the prize 5 more times. Even after he retired in 2008, he continued to provide cartoons to Tribune Media Service for a number of years. The Daily Cartoonist has a look back at Wright’s career: https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2024/04/04/don-wright-rip/
